[Libreoffice-ux-advise] [Bug 97991] New: Reducing the size of the Windows Installer

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=97991

            Bug ID: 97991
           Summary: Reducing the size of the Windows Installer
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: 5.2.0.0.alpha0+ Master
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: medium
         Component: Installation
          Assignee: libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: philipz85 at hotmail.com
                CC: cloph at documentfoundation.org,
                    libreoffice at openmailbox.org,
                    libreoffice-ux-advise at lists.freedesktop.org,
                    michael.meeks at collabora.com

There has been some similar types of bug reports in the past (bug 44996, bug
49671) discussing how to reduce the file size of the installer and i believe
this can be achieved through a number of approaches.

So analyzing the 5.1.1 installer on Windows which downloads at 211mb and fully
extracts at 981mb here is the breakdown of the folders.

fonts        :  42.4 mb
help         :  38.0 kb
presets      :   1.0 mb
program      : 448.0 mb
readmes      :   2.1 mb
share        : 468.0 mb
system       :   1.6 mb
[root files] :  16.9 mb

I have written a batch script ( http://pastebin.com/FdHr0YLE ) that is linked
from the "Installing in parallel on Windows" wiki page as a means of reducing
the size of the paralleled installation. The script removes 496mb (51%) of its
size by removing localized content that wouldnt be used by a user in these
folders.

program/resource/   : 129 mb
share/registry/     :  70 mb
share/extensions/   : 275 mb

So in order to reduce the size of the installer and not have an installer per
language, I'd like to suggest we create installers for a group of languages
based on the language origin or geographical region and here are some examples.

LibreOffice-default (aka America, Africa, Australia): en (English), es
(Spanish), fr (French), da (Danish), nl (Dutch), pt (Portuguese), pt-BR
(Portuguese Brazil), en-ZA (English-South Africa), ar (Arabic)
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_North_America
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_America
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Africa
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans_language

LibreOffice-westEU (aka West Europe): en, en-GB, de (German), pl (Polish), no
(Norwegian), pt (Portuguese), fr (French), ro (Romanian), ...
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italic_languages

LibreOffice-eastEU (aka East Europe): en, hu (Hungarian), el (Greek), ru
(Russian), uk (Ukrainian), ...
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_languages
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_language
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_language
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_language

LibreOffice-cjk (aka South and Southeast Asia): en, zh-CN/zh-TW (Chinese), ja
(Japanese), ko (Korean), id (Indonesian), vi (Vietnamese), th (Thai), ...
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asia
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia

LibreOffice-ctl (aka West, Central and South Asia): en, ar (Arabic), hi
(Hindi), he (Hebrew), bn (Bengali), fa (Persian), ur (Urdu), tr (Turkish), ....
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Iranian_languages
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_languages

With the space saved within each of these 5 installers, we can then customize
them to better cater to those languages/regions. For example we could include
help within the installer rather than a separate download or with the CJK
installer we could include addition open source cjk fonts like Noto Sans (bug
80346 comment 7).

We would still keep the full installer for users who want to get everything in
one installer, but we would guide users to these separate installers by default
when they go to the download page.

Alternatively we could have a font-free installer that would be used by users
who are upgrading, either by downloading it from the website or through the
update mechanism (bug 68274). Not sure how much of a reduction would come from
doing this as the fonts are 42mb uncompressed, but i have no idea how much it
would compressed.

For users who regularly upgrading once a month to the next point or fresh
release, giving them a smaller download is an advantage, especially for those
who are on slower connections.

I believe this concept could be used also on OS X, but dont think it would for
Linux.

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